The Shame and Embarrassement Angle of Anxiety

Instead of an interview today is a mashup of two episodes of Spiraling, the podcast I co-host with Serena Wolf about mental health. We started in 2019 where I’d walk to her apartment once a week and we’d talk and eventually started recording our conversations around anxiety. It’s been 4 years and now we live on opposite coasts, but we still record our conversations. 

The first half is from the middle of the current season, where we discuss navigating different timelines and expectations both from ourselves and from society. I picked this episode because I got messages from people saying it was comforting to hear where I am with being a single person navigating a freelance career so, even though it makes me cringe a little, I’m sharing it here too. 

The format of Spiraling is that Serena and I both share our “spirals” for the week, try to help each other talk through them, then discuss a topic: the one you’re about to hear is on comparison, money, the decision to have kids, and aging. All of this sounds real heavy but we’re mostly laughing and we always end with a segment called "high, higher, highest" where we share three highs of the week. The second half of this mashup is our goofy reintroduction episode where we each share favorite books, drinks, songs and more.

Show notes:

- To hear the full episodes of Spiraling these excerpts came from, listen to the first episode of Season 4 here, the fourth episode here, and the full archive here

- Favorite products mentioned:

• Sea Clear probiotic
• Katie's infusion container 

- Books mentioned:

• Katie's rec: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
• Serena's Recs: The Idea of You and An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

- Other codes to use to support the show:

• Ozma code: Katie15